In The End
by Ax
Summary: Song fic to Link-in Park's "In The End." Focuses on Jake's relationships with other people and his feelings after the war.


Disclaimer:  KAA owns Animorphs, although I wish I did.  Link-in Park owns the song "In the End." 

In the End

Before the vocal music starts, Jake is shown in the _Rachel_ with Jeanne, Santorelli, Menderash, Marco, and Tobias.  "Ram the Blade ship," Jake mouths.  His face is grim, and the camera zooms up into his face.  The camera starts showing flashbacks.

The Animorphs are standing at the abandoned construction site, and Elfangor's ship crashes down in front Jake, Marco, Rachel, Cassie, and Tobias.

_It starts with one thing._

The Animorphs descend into the Yeerk pool for the first time, and Jake starts trying to break Tom out of his cage.  However, he does not succeed.

_I don't know why,  
It doesn't even matter how hard you try.  
Keep that in mind._

Cassie's face looms up in front of Jake's eyes, and he is standing in nothingness.  She smiles at him, and he looks away, only to see the scene of him telling her about Ax, and that he must go save Ax from the Blade ship.  As his other self flies off, Cassie bursts into tears.  The camera zooms out again to show Jake on the _Rachel_.  He looks around at the people with him.

_I designed this rhyme  
To explain in due time._

It goes back to a flashback, and the camera first shows Jake and his family eating a normal dinner, Tom and Jake teasing each other like always.  Jake leaves for a mission, and the Animorphs come back to take his parents to the Hork-Bajir valley, because the Yeerks know who the Animorphs are.  They are not there, but when they drive up and try to shoot Jake, the camera zooms on his face, which is twisted in pure sadness and agony.  Feathers sprout out of his face as he morphs into a falcon.

_  
All I know  
Time is a valuable thing.  
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings._

Jake cartwheels through the air, shrieking in sadness.  An osprey, which is Cassie in morph, flies toward him to comfort him, but he abruptly jerks away.  Cassie peels off and joins Rachel in her bald eagle morph.

_  
Watch it count down to the end of the day.  
The clock ticks life away.  
It's so unreal._

The same scene of Jake's parents coming after him plays again, and again, but each time Jake does something slightly different, trying to learn how he could have saved them.

_Didn't look out below._

_Watch the time go right out the window,_

_Trying to hold on,_

_But didn't even know._

_Wasted it all just to watch it go._

Jake, three years older than the last time we saw him, is shown rocking back and forth in front of Rachel's grave, and the smaller one near it that says, "Tom Berenson."  A tear glints in his eye.

_I kept everything inside and, even though I tried,_

_It all fell apart._

Jake looks up into the sky, and between the stars, sketchy figures appear and form into the images of all the Animorphs sitting in Cassie's barn. 

_What it meant to me will eventually_

_Be a memory of a time when_

The sketchy figures turn into real life it shows the Animorphs planning their next attach, and Erek standing nearby in his own android body.  Rachel grins and mouths, "Let's do it!"  Marco rolls his eyes, and everybody laughs.

_I tried so hard  
And got so far,_

The scene switches to Rachel's funeral, where everybody is sitting in the pews, crying.  However, Jake's eyes are strangely absent of tears.  They are just very hollow and ragged.

_But in the end,_

_It doesn't even matter!_

The scene returns to Jake in the graveyard.  He simply rocks back and forth in front of Rachel's headstone.  

_I had to fall  
To lose it all._

With one last look at Rachel's grave marker, Jake stands up and drives to the _Rachel_.  He wipes away a tear, trying to look strong.

_But in the end,_

_It doesn't even matter_

The scene once again displays Jake and the others zooming towards the Blade ship on the _Rachel_.  The One's mouth opens in surprise, and he starts barking out orders to the crew members to move away.  Slowly, they start to do so.

_One thing I don't know why,_

_Doesn't even matter how hard you try._

Jake looks at Marco, who is staring at him.  They give each other a stiff smile, and Jake looks straight ahead.  Even though the Blade ship is moving away, they are gaining on it.

_Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme,_

_To remind myself how  
I tried so hard  
In spite of the way you were mocking me._

Time stops for everybody but Jake, and Drode appears before him.  Jake turns away, disgusted.  

_Acting like I was part of your property,_

_Remembering all the times you fought with me._

Tom's face comes into the air by Drode, and Jake looks back at it.  Tears start to pour out of his eyes, and he flashes back to his dream of him stalking Tom as the tiger, and then at the last moment Tom turns into the tiger, and Jake is the prey.

_I'm surprised  
It got so far._

Jake looks at Tom's face, and shakes his head sadly, reflecting on how he has changed because of the war and the deaths of his brother and cousin.  He realizes that Tom never actually knew him before the change after meeting Elfangor.  He shakes his head again, and glares daggers at Drode.

_Things aren't the way they were before,_

_You wouldn't even recognize me anymore._

_Not that you knew me back then,_

_But it all comes back to me  
In the end._

Jake closes his eyes, and remembers going to see Tobias to tell him about Ax.  Tobias stares hatefully at Jake.

_You kept everything inside and even though I tried,_

_It all fell apart._

The scene shows Jake in front of Rachel's grave again, looking intensely at nothing.

_What it meant to me_

_Will eventually be a memory of a time when I_

The scene changes to that of a fight, with all the Animorphs, except for Rachel, in their favorite morphs:  Jake as a tiger, Cassie as a wolf, Tobias as himself, Ax as himself, and Marco as a gorilla.  They defeat all the Hork-Bajir they were fighting, and Visser One gazes at them morosely, and comes out of Alloran's head and into the suitcase Marco holds up.

_Tried so hard,  
And got so far!_

The camera focuses on and then zooms into the viewing screen where Rachel is fighting five Yeerks in morph.  She loses badly, and after killing Tom, demorphs to human.  "I love you," she mouths to Tobias, and then dies.

_  
But in the end,  
It doesn't even matter._

Jake stares numbly at his brother and cousin's remains, and tears glint in his tiger eyes.

_  
I had to fall,  
To lose it all._

Jake sits in front of Rachel and Tom's graves again, doing nothing but rock back and forth.  The scene fades to Jake rocking in the presence of a sneering Drode.  He closes his eyes and begins to remember more.

_  
But in the end,  
It doesn't even matter._

Jake, in tiger morph, chases after Tom in the forest.  A wolf, Cassie, bounds into the small clearing Jake is in and bites down on his leg, allowing Tom to escape with the morphing cube.  Cassie and Jake demorph, and she stands there with tears coursing down her cheeks as Jake rants at her.

_I put my trust in you.  
Pushed as far as I can go._

Jake stalks off, and Cassie starts to run after him, but after he turns and gives her a death-stare, she turns back.  The camera focuses on Jake's face, and the anger evaporates after Cassie can no longer see him.  He falls, sobbing, to the forest floor.

_  
For all this,  
There's only one thing you should know:  
I put my trust in you.  
Pushed as far as I can go._

The scene finally moves back to Jake in the _Rachel_, where the Drode disappears, and real time starts up again.  Jake holds his hands in fists so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

_  
For all this,  
There's only one thing you should know:_

_I tried so hard,  
And got so far!_

Around him, everybody starts saying their goodbyes.  Marco and Jake give each other a brotherly hug, and Marco mouths, "Goodbye, bud."  Jake manages to force a smile.  Tobias, who has morphed human right before he dies, mouths, "I forgive you."

_  
But in the end,  
It doesn't even matter._

The scene shows the whole ship racing towards the Blade ship.  There is a fiery explosion that lasts for a single millisecond as the two ships collide, which extinguishes quickly when there is no oxygen to feed the fire.  The two burned out hulks drift aimlessly through space.

_  
I had to fall to lose it all,  
But in the end it doesn't even matter._

During the last few notes of the song, ghostly images of all the Animorphs watch the two ships, and a small, true smile flits across Jake's face.


End file.
